Neve fishes an apple slice from her drink, pops it into her mouth, and nearly chokes on it. Her eyebrows shoot up. “Yousneaky little whore. Tell me you didn’t actually go through his phone.”
“I didn’t touch it. I just... saw it. From someone named Reese. It said something like ‘Don’t worry, she won’t find out.’” The words taste sour. Saying them out loud makes them feel like cotton in my mouth.
She leans forward, elbows on the table. “And you think it’s something bad? Like the she that won’t find out is you?”
“I don’t know what to think,” I answer, voice low. “But he made you come here, gave us that spa gift card, told us to take the weekend. No warning, no explanation. Just go. Away all weekend.”
“And you think that’s not just... a gift?”
I shake my head. “Damian gives me flowers sometimes. He doesn’t do gifts. He doesn’t do sweet. He doesn’t do anything without a reason. And if I was in the way of something, this was his way of moving me.”
Neve doesn’t look surprised. She presses her lips together like she’s trying to decide whether or not to say something more.
“I keep going back to that message,” I say. “She won’t find out. What does that even mean? Was it sex? With this woman Reese? And I won’t find out?”
Neve shifts in her seat. I catch the flicker of something in her eyes, but she hides it fast.
I press my palms flat to the table. “I feel like I don’t know what’s happening anymore. And I don’t know how to ask. I don’t even know if I have the right.” My throat tightens. “I don’t know if we’re anything real.”
The silence between us stretches, and Neve looks down at her glass like she’s bracing for something, too.
I stare past her, at the empty space across the bar. The one where he stood the first night he looked at me like he saw through everything. The space where it started. I don’t say it outloud, but I already feel it. Something’s ending. And I don’t know if I’m ready.
Neve swirls the ice in her drink, her gaze lowered, the sound quiet between us. “I don’t know what he’s doing,” she says finally. “But I know what it feels like to love one of them and get nothing back.”
I look at her. She’s not talking about Damian. “It’s Bridger,” I say, watching her closely.
She flinches as I say his name. Her eyes flick up to mine, and her voice comes out quiet, brittle. “Please don’t say anything to him. It’s humiliating enough that he still sees me as some kid.”
I study her face for a moment, the way her shoulders are pulled tight, her fingers restless against the glass.
“How oldareyou?” I ask.
She hesitates. “Twenty-five,” she says. Then she looks away.
“Okay,” I say, keeping my tone steady. “But how old are youreally?”
She exhales through her nose, a short breath full of weight, and her shoulders drop. “Twenty-one.”
I purse my lips. “And how about now?”
“Nineteen,” she says, puffing out her breath. “But I’ll be twenty in a few days, I swear.”
It hangs between us. The truth. She straightens her back again, like she’s bracing for judgment.
I don’t give her any. “I didn’t ask because I care about the number,” I say. “I asked because you look like you’ve lived through some shit.”
Her expression shifts, softens, but she doesn’t respond. She just nods once, grateful and exhausted.
I look down at the table. The wood is scratched and worn, the edges chipped, like something used too hard for too long. I can relate. “We’re both in love with Cross brothers.” The words slip out before I can stop them.I’m in love with a Cross brother.I’ve never said that out loud, not even to myself. The sentence hovers, quiet and trembling. My chest tightens. “I love a Cross brother.” I blink once, slow. I just said it. Out loud. Twice.
Neve laughs softly, almost kindly. “Why do you look surprised?”
I shake my head, my voice barely a whisper. “I’ve never said it before. That I love him.”
Her face goes soft, the way people do when they’re about to explain something slowly, like you’re a child or tragically stupid. “You guys don’t talk about it?” she asks. “Because... he looks at you like you’re the only woman left on Earth who still matters.”
I want to believe that. I want to hold on to it. But it doesn’t make sense. I shake my head again. “No. We don’t talk. Not about that. Not about anything real.”
